My .Net Adventure

Frameworks and Austrian Economics

Inception

An interesting thing happened to me a few years back while sitting in a Sprint Retrospective. A nameless developer on our team voiced some frustration with our UI Framework. Person X stated that that the UI Framework was too constraining. Since I was largely responsible for this aspect of the system I was interested in hearing the developers concerns. When pressed to describe the areas Person X felt were too limiting, it became clear that the developer was trying to work out of band and out of pattern. The developer was trying to introduce a new UI pattern not yet discussed or agreed upon by our team and users. It was in this moment it occurred to me that while frameworks need to support the needs of the system, they should also prevent developers from introducing things that are not well understood at a whim. This particular conversation was the seedling for my particular view of how frameworks should support applications. I call it Framework Organics.

What is the Role of a Framework

This question will likely elicit 10 different answers if you ask 10 different people. And though you did not ask here is my answer.

A framework should box developers into the understood and agreed upon patterns while allowing for the necessary changes agreed upon over time.

In greater detail a framework should provide support for concepts that are relevant to the system being developed. In stark contrast a framework absolutely should not support any random concept a developer can dream up. It should limit the ability of developers to travel to far off into the weeds. Protecting your users from cowboy coders who are spinner happy!

Along with limiting developers from introducing new concepts, a well-designed framework should be able to adapt to change over time. It should be resilient and extendable to meet any reasonable need that may arise throughout the development lifecycle. This does not mean that you need to build an over engineered goliath of a framework that supports every possible permutation possible. Because you can’t and no one I have ever met can.

Organics and Austrians

One of my favorite economists F.A. Hayek wrote an entire book called ‘The Fatal Conceit’. In this book he makes the case against socialism. Political affiliation aside his premise is worth mentioning here. Hayek believed as many Austrian Economists did/do, that it was impossible for central planners to understand that millions of interactions of the millions of people they govern. He also argued that any attempt to plan around these interactions was a form of conceit that was doomed to fail. Austrians believe that the framework of society was grown overtime in a free market sort of way. If problems came up they were addressed and solved, it was this sort organic evolution that Austrians feel allow us to strive as we do today.

Again this is not meant to be a political rant. But parallels can be drawn between concepts in software design and economics. The Agile Method and the various approaches of iterative development it has spawned clearly harness the power of organic growth over time. Short cycles of problem/solution/repeat are much more in line with Hayek’s ideas than they are with say the Keynesian approach to planned government. In contrast the Waterfall methodology is more in line with Socialism. Waterfall is far more plan centric it’s ridged, and less adaptable to change over time. Waterfall does what it can to make sure change is as painful and costly as possible. It’s no wonder at all why that methodology is for the most part dead.

Bringing Back In

Ok so I am not an economist and I really do not want to be tagged a right wing radical because of this post. But the point here is simple, frameworks should evolve organically overtime. Yes this means constant refactoring of your core code throughout the life of a project. When new patterns are introduced, your framework will change and code sweeps will need to happen. As your product grows so will the level of support your framework provides but on an as needed basis. Keeping in mind the framework should also limit developers to the current set of patterns that are supported by the current revision of your framework.

The benefit of framework limitation should not be underestimated. By limiting concepts allowed in your systems users start to learn and understand stereotypes. As a result new screens seem familiar to them, less support questions arise, and your application is usable unlike ITunes for the PC. The benefits are not only seen by users. Developers now have a common language when designing new screens. “This fits our Master Detail pattern”; “This fits our search pattern”. And if a scenario does not seem to fit existing patterns perhaps the introduction of something new is needed. And the cycle continues in a nice organic sort of way!